It's budget season across Virginia, where local governments are trying to balance the books.
Small towns across Virginia have the highest percentage of their budgets from the federal government – place like the town of Marion, where more than a third of the budget comes from Washington D.C. Beck Stanley is a former town councilman in Bedford, where more than a quarter of the money comes from the federal government.
"So, when a big grant hits it's a big deal for little towns like Bedford, and we need to keep that money flowing both from Richmond and D.C," Stanley explains. "We've got some big projects coming up. We're trying to get an Amtrak stop in Bedford."
Keeping those big projects on the tracks may be difficult if chaos in Washington derails the budget process this year. Joe Flores at the Virginia Municipal League says it's really difficult to balance the books when a third or a fourth of your revenues are unknown.
"We lack specifics about what grants are subject to freeze, what grants are subject to recision or elimination or where layoffs may occur," Flores says. "Lacking that information, it's incredibly difficult for not just the state but local levels to develop a plan to respond."
The House of Delegates has an emergency committee that's looking at this, and recently Senate leaders announced their own emergency committee to take a look at what a dramatically smaller federal government might mean for Virginia.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
